Primaries

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AMaster is right - Obama didn't grab the delegate lead until Feb 12th, when he won DC, Maryland, and Virginia.

DR - Again I hope you are correct. Perhaps I am just being unnecessarily pessimistic. It's just that the longer this is going on, the uglier it's getting, and it's damaging both canidates now.

 

Sorry, AM, I could not remember if Obama won the first primary or not. I thought he had won Iowa, but I may have been wrong. It seems so long ago....

 

He did, I believe. However, iirc Clinton won the second primary, and for a while held a lead in nominees.

 

I was more referring to the stuff listed here.

Plus, she's a Clinton, and the Clintons are hard effing core.

 

Ok, the last statement struck me as kind of weird. Hardcore in what manner?

P.S.: Does anyone have the full content of that speech by Rev. Wright that caused all the hubbub? I've only found a youtube clip with a few way-out soundbytes... and the Hannity and Colmes logo, which makes me wonder how in context these phrases were. I mean, the pastor does strike me as more than a little racist, but I doubt if he's as raving all the time...

 

Hardcore in that they have, and have had for many years now, a truly impressive political machine. And they don't quit. That family is a juggernaut.

Ah, Wright's 9/11 sermon. No transcript that I've found, unfortunately.

And apparently the church has a Youtube channel. Interesting.

 

The Wright fiasco has really hurt Omaba with Independents. His association with him was very poor "political" but hardly personal judgment. And O does not strike me as someone who would make that kind of error. I think his relationship with Wright has been vastly overstated by the media and conservatives. No doubt that Wright has been an influence on him in some ways, but nothing like the "sermons" Wright spewed out in the tapes.

Obama has remarked that even the title of his book was taken from a sermon by Wright. Nevertheless, I think that all of us have influences in our lives from whom we take the best that they offer and leave their "lesser" actions and thoughts aside. For instance, Hemingway has had a huge influence on many literary types, including myself, but that does not mean that we agree with everything that Hemingway thought or wrote about. As an example, Hemingway's fascination with bull fighting in Spain is something that I despise and resent deeply. But that does not in anyway diminish his accomplishments as a writer, nor in anyway, his Art. It does not make me a fan of bull fighting in anyway, shape or form.

Many Americans are influenced by Thomas Jefferson, a man who loved liberty and equality, and was no doubt one of their greatest champions in human history. Yet, he held slaves his entire life and held the belief that "blacks were inferior to whites." That is a wholly despicable and hypocritical set of actions and beliefs that Jefferson has been roundly criticized for in recent years. It has also diminshed his reputation in some quarters. Yet, he is still among that greatest of America's Founders, with enormous influence over many of us in our poltical and philosopical thinking.

Ok, I'll stop ranting now. It's just that I've been hearing about all those FoX talking heads who have been slamming Obama all week long, and they have been getting all over my very last nerve with all their phony, sanctimonious, hate mongering.

This says it all for me:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erikka-yancy/more-fox-lies-jeremiah-w_b_92850.html

 

From what little I have seen of what Wright said it doesnt seem all that controversial to me. Seems to be along hte lines of: The US has commited a whole bunch of **** so it isnt strange if people are pissed off at us. I could of course have misunderstood. If anything my esteem of Obama has gone up a lot by learning that this is the kind of stuff his advisors believe in.

 

Fox "news" using half-true and overblown smears to denigrate the all-but-certain Democratic nominee? Gee, why am I not surprised. I suppose now hitting HRC is much less of a priority, though they'll probably use any occasion just to keep their fangs sharp.

Partisan hacks.

@ Joacqin: I agree... for all my opinion matters, it might be good if more people in the US considered the possibility that even their country can make wrong - morally or practically - choices in its foreign policy. I'm not saying that all of Rev. Wright's statements were true or proper, but it seems that FOX tried to provoke a visceral reaction based on that principle. Chances are, they know what they're doing.

Apparently, it's not something that any mainstream politician should say. That was one of my disappointments in the Obama speech - while it was of very high quality overall, it had a fair bit of pandering to popular ideas. Of course, I'm not saying this phenomenon is endemic to the US - politicians elsewhere indulge in such politics as well, and I've heard more than a bit of such talk in my own country's political discourse. Still, imo the public is served better by a politician who is honest with it than one who gives it what (he thinks) it wants to hear.

 

In this particular case, how is the public is better served by a politician who loses the opportunity to serve by giving up any chance of being elected because he/she told the public what it does not want to hear?

 

Presuming the politician is correct as well as honest (not an oft-occuring combination, I know ) , in two ways. The first is the more direct one: they win regardless of the unpopularity of this single position. The second is the indirect one: by bringing the issue into the core of the public attention, the politician eventually serves to highlight it, allowing another to eventually be able to win and uphold it. If I were to put it dramatically, they become martyrs for the issue.

While these may sound so uncommon to be absurd, they form one of the most basic principles of politics. Every reform that has been initially unpopular (which is the majority, if not all) has been realized either by someone who was able to push it through regardless of the opposition or by someone who enabled it by weakening the opposition - or, usually, a combination of the two. If no one ever dared to express a dissenting opinion or if such opinions never eventually triumphed, change would be nearly impossible - whether this change would be the emergence of Protestantism, the abolition of slavery, or the law that requires you to buckle your seatbelt when driving.

 

Shaman, while I whole-heartedly agree with you in principle, in the reality of the political world, your points just aren't practical.

In a tight race, nobody is going to risk taking an unpopular postion (particularly one that isn't really seen as being necessary), potentially turn off a large segment of the voting public, and give the opposition ammunition. Now if they get elected, that's another matter, and that would potentially present an opportunity to express these unpopular views, but not during an election race.

I can't think of any political figure who would intentionally become a martyr for any but the most monumental of issues. Martin Luther King might be an example (although I don't know if it is reasonable to say he knowingly sacrificed himself, but he he knew the risks), but that's not really the same thing.

Again, that's much easier to do once you're elected.

So again, while I don't disagree with your sentiments, from a practical view, we just aren't going to see what you suggest happen.

 

@Splunge:

I see, you're right that my statements are impractical in this particular case. Elections, especially winner-take-all elections such as the presidential race, are not the best time to experiment with new ideas if you have a serious chance of winning. If anything, they urge candidates to opt for maximum appeal, thus mainstream issues and relatively conservative (not the ideology, the aproach) campaigning.


What I meant was more of a general situation, not necessarily the right thing to do in the next 6-7 months on every issue. It is possible that a politician tries to make a change in the public discourse, and is either respected enough to carry it through (option a) or at least manages to make it a debatable point (option B). Martyr would be a strong word, but perhaps visionary is a correct term for the pioneers who first bring an issue that eventually comes to dominate the political landscape. There are certainly politicians whose words and actions have significantly changed the discourse in every way - FDR and Barry Goldwater might be conventional examples for the US, but there are also many more from every part of the political spectrum.

 

And so the see-saw continues. After a week of bad press in which Obama's numbers were down in the polls, it now appears that Hillary's numbers are the ones in freefall, over her (false) comments that in her visit to Bosnia in the 1990s she landed amid sniper fire.

She claims she simply mis-spoke and forgot the details of the event. As has been pointed out by many, while it's certainly possible to forget trivial events from 10 years past, you would think that putting your head down and running for a car amid a hail of bullets is something you'd remember for the rest of your life.

To add additional humor to her claim, they actually have film footage of her landing. As she steps off the plane, there is a small Bosnian girl handing Hillary a bouquet of flowers. I wonder if the gunfire started right after this?

Anyway, here's the link to the latest poll information.

 

The girl's name was Sniper Fire.

As found so often, lying will help in an election -- unless you get caught before the votes are cast.

 

I heard a news bit on the radio that was saying someone asked Chelsea Clinton about the Lewinski affair. Chelsea told the questioner "it's none of your business" and everyone cheered wildly. I wonder if that boosted or hindered Hillary's prospects.

As for Hillary lying about sniper fire, it doesn't surprise me in the least. She needs something of the sort to stand up to McCain's reputation as a war hero. Stupid move, though, because right now what she needs tp focus on is getting the nomination.

Anyone have odds that she'll take the VP slot with Obama as prez? What's that crackling sound? Hell freezing over? If she really loved America (and her party) she'd offer the olive branch and humble herself for the good of the country.

 

The problem is, Hillary is saying that we should count the Florida and Michigan voters as part of the popular vote, even though the state isn't seating any delegates. Which would be a sound argument to make if Barack had actually been on the ballot in both of those states. So if she wins PA by 70,000 or more votes (unlikely but not totally out of the realm of possibility) she'll say that she's ahead in the popular vote tally. Of course, that will be un-done a week later when North Carolina hold its primary.

She will never humble herself. If anything, she has taken a win at all costs approach to this campaign. Ultimately, I don't think it's going to matter. BO is going to win in North Carolina, Oregon and Montana. HRC will win in Tennessee, Pennsylvania and West Virgina (and probably Puerto Rico), while Indiana is looking like a even split right now, with neither candidate winning by a large enough margin to make much of a difference in the delegate count. If the supers decide to side with Hillary anyway, there will be open revolt in the Democratic party. It's just no one has the balls to tell HRC to step aside.

 

There are three things I wouldn't bet on.

1. Acid wash ever coming back into style.
2. Eddie Murphy ever being funny again.
3. Hillary Clinton being Obama's VP after the way she's conducted herself during this campaign.

 

I saw a Time or Newsweek poll about 2 months ago, and it showed that HRC's electability over McCain was helped by having Obama on the ticket as VP, but by only a small margin. However, Obama's electability was significantly impaired by having HRC as his running-mate.

 

For either candidate, Edwards makes a great choice for VP. Far better than an Obama/Clinton or Clinton/Obama ticket.